Comments by "Mark Pawelek" (@mark4asp) on "Dr. Tracey Marks"
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"Sugar withdrawal is like opioid withdrawal"
-> No it isn't. I've never been addicted to an opiod, but have been to sugar. Just because we use the same word for our habits: 'addiction', doesn't make the two experiences even remotely comparable. I gave up sugar, practically overnight, about 22 years ago. I discovered sugar was a bad nutrient. It makes us fat, rots our teeth, makes us diabetic, ... There's no upside to it. For example: no sugar rush. In fact eating a lot of sugar makes us sleepy. So I just decided to stop eating sugary foods. It was easy to do. There was no physical withdrawal - as with opiods. Nor was there any mental withdrawal. I needed nobodies help to do this. On the contary: the rest of society made it far more difficult than it should've been by adding sugar to many processed, and snack foods. Today, I even restrict my fruit to a minimun to elimate fructose from my diet. Once I'd eat apples, and other high fructose fruits - many per day. Today I have, at most, about 3 or 4 oranges per week; and very rarely have other fruit. At least one chocolate bar per day was my normal habit. Today I never touch chocolate unless it's sugarless or Christmas.
PS: I have witnessed opiod, and other drug addictions, first hand. Comparing it to sugar relativises how bad many drug addictions are. Please don't do it.
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A good sleeping pill will have a short half-life. Such that, by the time one wakes up, the effects of the drug will have worn off. Unfortunately, such short half-life sleeping pills are called 'date-rape drugs', and are effectively banned. So when I went to my doctor to demand sleeping pills I was given Tamezepan - a benzodiazapine with a longish half-life (Average half-life 10 to 15 hours). After taking it once, I woke up next day in a daze which slowly wore off. Using my (sharp) mind is important in my job, so that was a no-no. The only short-term sleeping drugs I can recommend as effective will all be banned. I won't name them.
It looks like useful sleep drugs will be hard to get. What should people with insomnia do? I gave up drinking caffeine drinks after 10am. Caffeine half-life is ~ 5 hours. Which means that: after 5 hours half of it is left in your system. After 10 hours only one quarter, and after 15 hours only one eighth remains. So, in my example, by 1am the next day only one eighth of that caffeine was left in my system. Caffeine has that unfortunate property of keeping you awake at night. It is used in tea, coffee, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Red Bull, ... Never drink it before you go to bed. Ideally - stop drinking caffeine drinks after mid-day.
Given you're a caffeine drinker, you'll notice that sometimes you ARE able to sleep at night. So the effect of caffeine in preventing sleep isn't 100%. It can be mitigated by other factors such as: strenuous physical activity, eating carbohydrate meals, taking a benzo. I think most people with insomnia:
- drink too many caffeine drinks after noon,
- don't get enough physical activity,
- or don't eat big meals in the late evening.
Unlike Dr Marks - I cannot recommend sleeping pills. The suggested half-life of ambien is: 2 to 3 hours. So after 8 hours, about 3 half-lifes have passed. One eighth of the original dose is still in your system when you wake. Ambien is much better than Tamezepan. When your doctor gives you a sleeping pill ask him/her what the half-life is. Do not accept anything with a half-life longer than 3 hours.
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